Mission—Team—FAQ—Privacy—Terms—Sponsors—Grammar—Typing Course—Donate

© 2026 Elon Automation B.V.

Learn Hardcore Hebrew: לא נשאר כלום במקרר. - There is nothing left in the fridge.

Hardcore Hebrew
/Lesson 59
/לא נשאר כלום במקרר.

לא נשאר כלום במקרר.

לא נשאר כלום במקרר.lo nish'ar klum bamekarer.

There is nothing left in the fridge.

Breakdown of לא נשאר כלום במקרר.

Questions & Answers about לא נשאר כלום במקרר.

What does נשאר mean here?

נשאר comes from the verb להישאר, which means to remain, to stay, or to be left.

In this sentence, נשאר means was left / remained.

So:

נשאר = remained / was left
לא נשאר = nothing remained / there wasn’t anything left

A learner will often see this verb in everyday situations, for example:

נשאר לי זמן = I have time left
נשאר אוכל = there is food left
לא נשאר כסף = there’s no money left

Why is לא נשאר literally in the past tense if English often says there is nothing left?

This is a very common and important question.

Hebrew often uses a past-tense form like נשאר to express the idea of being left over after something happened. In English, we may translate that naturally as either:

Nothing remained in the fridge
There was nothing left in the fridge
There is nothing left in the fridge

So even though נשאר is grammatically past, the whole sentence often refers to the current result of an earlier action: people ate things, used them, and now nothing remains.

This is very natural Hebrew.

כלום

nothing

Elon.io is an online learning platform

We have an entire course teaching Hebrew grammar and vocabulary.

Start learning Hebrew now

Why does Hebrew use לא here instead of אין?

Because the sentence is built around the verb נשאר.

לא negates verbs.
אין is used to say something does not exist / there isn’t.

So:

לא נשאר כלום במקרר = Nothing was left in the fridge
אין כלום במקרר = There’s nothing in the fridge

These are similar, but not exactly the same.

The first suggests that something may have been there before, but now it’s gone. The second simply states that there is nothing there.

So לא נשאר כלום במקרר has a stronger sense of nothing remained.

What exactly does כלום mean? Does it mean nothing or anything?

כלום can mean nothing, but in some contexts it can also behave more like anything.

In this sentence:

לא נשאר כלום = nothing was left

With negation, כלום often appears in the sense of anything / nothing at all, depending on how the sentence works.

Compare:

נשאר משהו? = Is anything left?
לא נשאר כלום = Nothing is left / Nothing at all is left

A close synonym in many sentences is:

שום דבר = anything / nothing depending on context

For example:

לא נשאר שום דבר במקרר = Nothing was left in the fridge

That version is a little more explicit.

Why is the verb נשאר singular?

Because כלום is treated as a singular idea.

Even though English uses nothing, which feels like a pronoun, Hebrew uses כלום as a singular item grammatically, so the verb is singular too:

לא נשאר כלום = singular
not לא נשארו כלום

This is similar to other Hebrew expressions where an indefinite or abstract thing takes singular agreement.

What does במקרר mean exactly?

במקרר means in the refrigerator / in the fridge.

It is made from:

ב־ = in
מקרר = refrigerator

So:

במקרר = in the fridge

In normal speech, this is usually understood as in the refrigerator, especially in context.

Why is there no separate word for the in במקרר?

Because in Hebrew, prepositions often combine with the.

The basic pieces are:

ב־ = in
ה־ = the
מקרר = refrigerator

So ב + ה + מקרר becomes במקרר, pronounced ba-mekarer when it means in the refrigerator.

This contraction is very common in Hebrew:

בבית = in the house
בספר = in the book
במקרר = in the refrigerator

Without vowel marks, the spelling looks the same, so context tells you whether it means in a refrigerator or in the refrigerator. In this sentence, in the fridge or in the refrigerator is the natural meaning.

Is the word order normal? Why not put במקרר earlier?

Yes, this word order is completely normal.

Hebrew often allows flexibility, but:

לא נשאר כלום במקרר sounds natural and neutral.
It presents the main idea first: nothing was left
Then it adds the location: in the fridge

You could move things around for emphasis, for example:

במקרר לא נשאר כלום = In the fridge, nothing was left

That version puts more emphasis on the fridge specifically.

So the original sentence is the most straightforward, everyday order.

Could I also say לא נשאר שום דבר במקרר?

Yes, absolutely.

Both are natural:

לא נשאר כלום במקרר
לא נשאר שום דבר במקרר

They both mean roughly nothing was left in the fridge.

The difference is mostly style:

כלום is short, common, and very conversational.
שום דבר is slightly fuller and more explicit.

In everyday spoken Hebrew, כלום is extremely common.

How is this sentence pronounced?

A natural pronunciation is:

Lo nish'ar klum ba-mekarer.

Notes:

לא = lo
נשאר = nish-AR
כלום = klum
במקרר = ba-mekarer (if understood as in the refrigerator)

The stress usually falls like this:

lo nish-AR klum ba-meka-RER

Does this sentence sound natural in everyday Hebrew?

Yes, very natural.

A Hebrew speaker could say this in many everyday situations, for example after checking the fridge and finding it empty.

It sounds idiomatic and common, especially in speech.

Very natural alternatives include:

אין כלום במקרר = There’s nothing in the fridge
לא נשאר כלום במקרר = Nothing is left in the fridge
המקרר ריק = The fridge is empty

The sentence you have is especially good when you want the idea that things used to be there, but now they’re gone.

Your questions are stored by us to improve Elon.io